The Gatekeepers and their Controlled, Redacted Leaks

Arthur Silber has another post regarding Glenn Greenwald’s control and timing of which Snowden-released documents to reveal and when to reveal them. Silber has stated that if there are documents which reveal the State’s various crimes, they should all be disclosed to us, and immediately. Check out my recent post on Silber’s several posts on Snowden and Greenwald.

And no, there are no “national security” interests to protect by continuing to withhold, censor or redact documents, despite what the State and its flunky pundits try to assert. If you honestly want to protect our national security, then tell our stupid bureaucrats to stop initiating wars of aggression and occupations and provoking foreigners. Duh. These national security bureaucrats are like the dog chasing its tail, and they’re doing it intentionally to continue to “create monsters to destroy” to justify their parasitic bureaucracies.

In Silber’s latest post, he points out how Establishment news writer Richard Cohen of the Washington Post now praises Edward Snowden as “careful” by releasing the NSA information to “responsible” news organizations such as the Guardian and the New York Times, as opposed to “tossing it up in the air” as WikiLeaks had supposedly done. (See Arthur Silber’s post comparing Snowden-Greenwald to WikiLeaks.)

Greenwald’s slowly and “carefully” releasing the redacted documents is being approved by the Ruling class, which also consists of the Rulers’ gatekeepers including Richard Cohen. And now we know whom the “Guardian” is guarding.

As Silber noted, and as I have seen on various blogs now, such as the comments on this post on EPJ, some people seem to have a problem with criticizing Greenwald for his “control” over document releases. “At least he’s informing us as to what the NSA has been up to,” etc., so we shouldn’t criticize him. Well. I happen to believe in calling out those who on the surface are on our side, but who nevertheless give clear signs that, ultimately, the State and the Rulers (and their surveillance agenda) matter most.

In contrast to the “careful” and “responsible” Edward Snowden and Greenwald who do not seem to believe that the information in question belongs to the people but rather to the Rulers, Bradley Chelsea Manning had stated, correctly, that the information is in the “public domain.” And Manning also noted, “… Washington Post sat on the video… David Finkel acquired a copy while embedded out here. . . . – i want people to see the truth . . . regardless of who they are . . . because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public.”

The people don’t need the State’s gatekeepers to sift through material to decide for us what we can or cannot (or may or may not) see. Let it all out now and let the people sift through it all. We own it.

The conclusion should be painfully obvious. The manner in which the Snowden leaks are being delivered to us represents no serious threat to the ruling class and the Establishment whatsoever. The ruling class is entirely comfortable with the leak stories. In fact, the ruling class affirmatively benefits from leaks of this kind: Americans are becoming accustomed to a startlingly comprehensive level of surveillance, and they are granting it their approval. That we are surveilled much if not most of the time is barely even “news” any longer. It’s just the way things are. Perhaps we need to make a few adjustments at the outer margins, but basically everything is hunky-dory. Add a little “transparency,” “oversight” and “accountability” and Americans will let the State surveil them 24/7. Don’t you want to be safe? Of course you do.